Walker Zero
by StephenMcTowelie
Summary: A short story about the Doctor and Rick trying to prevent the zombie apocalypse. Final chapter complete.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter I

"This is odd." commented the Tenth Doctor looking at the TARDIS controls. "What is it?" asked Rose coming up from behind him. "Not sure, maybe a little interference with the time vortex or something. Just want to be sure I'm getting you back to the right London this time. Wouldn't want a repeat of that cybermen incident again now would we?" the Doctor mused. "A-ha! There we go!" the Doctor exclaimed, flipping a few switches and whirling a few knobs. The familiar swoosh of the TARDIS engines signaling their arrival back in London. Rose opened the door expecting to see her home with not a zeppelin in the sky. Instead she walked out into a humid forest of the American South. "Doctor? What is this? I thought we were going to London?" asked Rose. The Doctor walked out and took a look around. "Hmmph. This is interesting." He said then fiddled with his sonic screwdriver pointing it at the sky then back at the TARDIS. "We appear to be in Virginia around the year 2015." The Doctor remarked. "Virginia? Why are we in Virginia?" asked Rose. "That's a good question." replied the Doctor. "Suppose I'll go check something.." the Doctor started to head back to the TARDIS but froze when he heard the cocking of a gun. "Don't move and drop that thing in your hand." a gruff voice from behind him demanded. "What is it with you human's and your guns, always pointing them at people." The Doctor chided as he turned back around. "That's enough!" Rick demanded, pulling back the hammer on his revolver. "All right, all right don't get testy now." the Doctor remarked and dropped his sonic screwdriver. "Daryl, Glen." Rick called over to his friends that were hiding in the trees. Daryl approached Rose while Glen picked up the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. All of the sudden they heard a snarling sound followed by the emergence of a walker out of the underbrush to the east. Without hesitation Daryl shot the walker between the eyes and went to retrieve his arrow. "Only one this time. We're lucky." Rick grumbled. "What the devil was that? A zombie?" Rose exclaimed. "Keep your voice down miss; you'll attract more of them." Rick said. "You must really have no idea where you are? Did you sleep through everything in that phone booth over there?" Rick asked. "Actually it's a police box." the Doctor corrected him. "Shut up." Rick retorted. "Now I don't know what a zombie is but that there is a walker. They used to be people like us until they died. Then they came back as those things. Now I'll cut ya'll some slack since I missed out on what happened when the world went to shit myself." Rick explained. "Now if you would come with us. We'll see what to do with you back at our community." Rick told them. Rick, Daryl and Glen led the Doctor and Rose to the gates of Alexandria. "It's ok, they're with us Carol." Rick called up to Carol who was watching the gate. The gate opened and Rick and company were met by Carl. "Carl get back in the house!" Rick shouted. Carl did as he was told and Rick took the Doctor and Rose down to what had been the room where his group was interviewed when they first arrived in Alexandria.

"If you would take a seat." Rick told the Doctor and Rose, directing them to a couch. Glenn and Daryl stood at either side of them. "Now I'll ask you again, what were ya'll doing snooping around the woods over there?" Rick asked, picking back up his harsh tone from when he first met the Doctor. "We were lost. If you hadn't have shown up brandishing your weapons we would have been merrily on our way. If you let us go now we'll be off and out of your hair lickety split." the Doctor replied. "We've run into too many unsavory characters out there. You should understand we would be skeptical of just letting you go now that we've brought you here. "said Rick. "We've got ourselves a safe place here and we've had to do things we weren't proud of to keep it that way. We can't let anyone jeopardize what we've built here." Rick continued. "Safe? From what?" Rose asked. "The walkers, those things out there. You really are dense lady." Daryl said in his soft melodic, grumbling voice. "Those woods where we found you are crawling with walkers. I'm surprised you're not more familiar with them." Glenn commented. "Or how you survived with nothing but that little pen light to protect yourself." Daryl added. "It's called a sonic screwdriver, please get your terminology right." the Doctor corrected him. "You really are clueless. Well let me fill you in then. A couple years ago the world all went to shit, people started dying from some disease, we're not sure what exactly caused it but that's not the worst part. After they died those people came back as walkers and it continued on that way. Civilization crumbled and now the dead outnumber the living by a pretty hefty margin." Rick explained. "I have a question, what year is it?" asked the Doctor. "We haven't kept the best track of time since the world became well, like this. It all started back around 2010 or so we think." Rick told him. "Oh my God. Doctor that's only a couple years ahead of my time..." Rose whispered to the Doctor. "Rose this is not your timeline. Remember the fourth great and bountiful human empire? It's like that, something feels off about all of this." the Doctor whispered back. None of what they were saying made any sense to Rick and the others. "Say, what was that box you were staying in?" Daryl inquired. The Doctor decided to come clean. It's not like they could steal the TARDIS from him, he was the only one who could pilot it, besides the TARDIS' security measures would make sure they never got inside. "It's called a TARDIS, that stands for time and relative dimension in space. It only looks like a police box because the cloaking device froze that way. It's really much bigger on the inside." the Doctor explained. Rick, Daryl and Glenn all stared at the Doctor with a blank thousand yard stare. "What?" Rick blankly asked. "It's a time machine." the Doctor simply stated. "It also goes in space." Rose added. "A time machine? You really expect me to believe that nonsense?" asked Rick. "Believe it or not, that's your call, I'm simply telling you how it is." the Doctor replied. "Riiight." Daryl sarcastically commented. "Well whether or not his whimsical story is true or he's just crazy as a loon he doesn't seem dangerous. Perhaps this guy and his girlfriend could join our community. Honestly we need all the people we can get." Glenn suggested. "She's not my girlfriend, she's my companion." the Doctor corrected Glenn but was ignored as Rick started talking over him. "I wouldn't go on offering these guys full membership in the group just yet." Rick rebuffed Glenn. "I mean we don't even know their names." Rick added, this time with a more playful tone in his voice. It was the first time the Doctor had noticed him break from his deathly serious composure. "Oh, well I'm Rose Tyler and this is the Doctor." Rose introduced the both of them. "We could use a doctor around here, especially after what happened to the last one." Glenn commented. He was starting to see their guests as a potential gain for the community. They weren't like the others out there, cold, animalistic, and ruthless; they also couldn't have survived out there if they were as naive to the ways of the world as the original inhabitants of Alexandria were. In a way the Doctor and his companion were the best of both worlds it seemed, having the wit and fortitude to survive this long but doing so without losing their humanity, something neither he nor Rick could truly claim to have achieved. "Doctor who?" asked Rick. "It's just the Doctor." replied the Doctor. "That's really all there is, he's just the Doctor." Rose confirmed after seeing Rick's face wrinkle in confusion. "We can just call him Doctor X, like the guy from the X-men." Daryl suggested. "It's actually Professor X." Glenn corrected him. "Figures that a chinaman would know his comic book characters." Daryl snarkily responded. "I thought we went over this before, I'm Korean not Chinese." Glenn told Daryl. "Chinese, Japanese it's all the same thing." Daryl jokingly replied. "Well fine, Doctor X it is, what kind of doctor are you? We could really use a good surgeon around here. Things can get pretty rough and folks need to get patched up you know." Rick asked as he was starting to come around to the idea that the Doctor and Rose could be trusted. "I'm not that kind of doctor, actually more like a scientist although my knowledge of human anatomy could suffice for mending minor wounds and such, would have to bear in mind that you people only have one heart but I suppose..." the Doctor started to ramble. "Alright, alright, that's fine." Rick stopped him. "Last guy we had who said he was a scientist turned out to be full of shit." Daryl commented. "Eugene still has his uses even if he couldn't undo the apocalypse." Glenn said, sticking up for Eugene. "Stop the apocalypse, Doctor we.." Rose started to whisper to the Doctor. "Don't you even say it Rose, you know we can't." the Doctor rebuked her. Rick pretended not to notice them whispering to each other. "Well, well. I think we should all sleep on it before we decide what to do with our guests." Rick said while standing up and stretching. "Glenn, if you could find them suitable lodging for the night and post a guard on them." Rick instructed Glenn. "For our protection, and yours." Rick turned to the Doctor and explained. "Quite understandable." the Doctor replied. It seemed a fine turnaround for these brutes to go from wanting to kill them to being a tad wary of them while at the same time offering them whatever creature comforts this scruffy smelly version of Earth had to offer them. The Doctor and Rose stood up and followed Glenn to a two story house a block away from the wall. As they left Rick turned to Daryl and sighed. "Keep an eye on them. Worst case we could have an unhinged nut running about here; best case they could be everything Eugene was not." Rick told Daryl. "No problem. They seem a little too clean for wandering around out there. Perhaps they're with another community we don't know about, someplace bigger, more secure." Daryl replied. "You talking about those rumors we heard about Hilltop?" asked Rick. "Just sayin'. Maybe we get these guys to open up and we find out if we've got an enemy or a trading partner out there." Daryl replied. "Remember sheriff, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar." Daryl said before he left.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II

That night Rose and the Doctor sat down on separate bunks of a child's bunk bed on the second floor of the house that Rick and company had put them into. Carol sat downstairs on the front porch with a shotgun to make sure they didn't try to escape. The Doctor was fidgeting and trying to come up with a plan to get his sonic screwdriver back from Rick and get himself and Rose back safely to the TARDIS. Rose meanwhile had other things on her mind. "Doctor." she called up softly from the bottom bunk. "Yes, what is it Rose?" asked the Doctor. "Doctor, I don't want to live in this world in a few years." Rose said. "You don't have to." the Doctor assured her. "But what if I stop traveling with you, what if someday. . .you get tired of me?" Rose asked shifting into a forlorn voice. "Oh Rose, don't say that." the Doctor said in a comforting tone. "That's not what I meant at all; you know alternate reality, that's all this is." the Doctor continued, his speech returning to his usual playful cadence. "How do you know for sure?" Rose asked him. "I don't. Well, not until I can get back to the TARDIS and scan the space-time continuity for any errors that would alert us that we are in a reality apart from the one we know." the Doctor confessed. "Then this might be my future, my mum's, Doctor we have to do something to stop this from happening." Rose implored the Doctor. "Rose, Rose, Rose, you know we can't go willy nilly altering the course of events, this could be a fixed point for all we know." the Doctor replied, hesitant to get involved in a timeline he knew nothing about. "But, Doctor that is what we do. We're always meddling with people's timelines, trying to produce a better outcome; sometimes we can, sometimes we can't but we at least have to try. Even if this isn't my world these people deserve better." Rose implored the Doctor. "I know Rose, I know. As much as I would like to merrily be on my way a part of me wants to help them." the Doctor confessed. It was in his nature to help people but for some reason this time it just felt like a little more than he was up for. This world, it felt wrong, the people in it were all wrong; something told him that if he interfered it would only make things worse. Call it a Time Lord's intuition, or perhaps just a Time Lord's overactive nerves. "Alright then, say we go back and stop this whole situation from happening. That's all well and good except in order to do that I will need to get my sonic back and we both have to get back to the TARDIS. That wouldn't be a problem if not for the three dozen or so angry gun toting humans out there between us and that corrugated steel wall holding us in here." the Doctor stated. "We'll have to earn their trust, it might take days, even weeks to prove ourselves to them but sooner or later they'll let us go out on our own. When that happens we go back to the TARDIS, fix all this zombie mess and we jet off to London and these people go on with their lives completely zombie free with everyone they lost being alive and well again." Rose explained. "Aha that is clever, so clever I already came up with it myself; oh no well I didn't but if I wanted to take the long way around that's how I would do it. Being a time traveler I prefer direct routes, shortcuts and the like but you, you silly little humans, the long way is how you do things. A perspective like that is boring, but it is brilliant nonetheless." the Doctor rambled on and on excitedly. "Well then Rose I hope you're prepared for a month or two of roughing it." the Doctor exclaimed.

Meanwhile, downstairs Carol had overheard everything the Doctor and Rose had said. They had not exactly been quiet in their discussion. Most of it seemed like nonsense to begin with but the two of them seemed to be quite into it. She made a mental note concerning this conversation but did nothing except sit at her post and wait for the sun to come up.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter III

"They sure do seem to take this time travel story seriously" Carol told Daryl as they were walking down the lane late in the morning the following day. "Yeah those two are a couple of odd characters." Daryl replied. "That's putting it lightly, the strange thing is that they really seem to believe it and not in that mentally ill "I believe the sky is yellow and made of marshmallows" kind of way." Carol said. "Don't tell me you buy that horse shit." Daryl jeered. Just then Rick stopped the two of them. "On your way out?" he asked Daryl. "Yeah, there's rumored to be a nice stash of small arms just off the beltway in DC where the army had dropped everything and ran back when people started turning. If that falls through I know a couple places we could pick up a few goodies along the way." Daryl told him. "Just remember if it gets too bad out there don't try and push it. We haven't cleared a lot of walkers in that direction so things could get thick pretty quickly." Rick cautioned him. "Hear ya, loud and clear." Daryl replied then continued on his way. ". . . and Carol, I want you to get with our new arrivals and put them to work in the kitchen. It's something small they can do while they're here. Those two wouldn't last five minutes on a run. If they can cut it there then maybe afterwards we can place them on the wall with you if that would be alright. I know that I can trust you to be a good judge of character." Rick told Carol. "If it keeps me from having to bake sugar cookies and forget about the real world that's fine." Carol told him. "Good, try and get them to open up to you; find out where they're really from, and what attitude their group might take towards us. I'm gonna send Glenn and Eugene out later to investigate that blue box they were found in too. Might be hiding something in there, or at least get a clue to what these folks are all about." Rick explained.

Later that day Glenn, Eugene, Abraham and a couple others from Alexandria went back to where they had found the TARDIS the day before. There were a handful of walkers lurking around there now. Abraham buried an axe in the top of walker's skull while Glenn knifed another one between the eyes. Eugene stood back and let the others clear the area. Once the walkers had all been dealt with the group turned their attention to the TARDIS. Glenn tried to simply open the door but of course it was locked. "Didn't think it was really going to be that easy did you buddy?" Abraham laughed. "Alright down stand back." Abraham ordered before he raised his axe and attempted to chop through the TARDIS door which appeared to be nothing more than solid wood. The axe clinked and sparked against the door leaving not as much as a scratch upon the door. "Holy shit!" Abraham remarked before he attempted to hack open the TARDIS again to no avail. Abraham continued to whack the door but the TARDIS remained unharmed. "Brawn ain't workin' maybe ya'll want to give brains a try?" Eugene suggested. Abraham stepped aside, scowling at Eugene as he walked up and tried to pick the TARDIS lock with a piece of a coat hanger and a crowbar. While Eugene was having no more luck than Abraham the noise they had made attracted more walkers to the area. "Here they come!" Glenn announced as the first walker, a haggard man with his badly decomposed face falling off came through the brush. Glenn lunged forward and stabbed the walker through the skull with his knife. Meanwhile Abraham swung his axe down and cleaved vertically through the skull of a chubby putrid walker approaching through the other side. One of the female Alexandrites lanced another walker, formerly a goth guy through the eye with a sharpened piece of rebar while a male Alexandrite clubbed another walker with a hammer. The group fended off a steady trickle of walkers coming at them from all directions while Eugene continued to fiddle with the TARDIS's lock. "I don't even feel any tumblers moving around in there. How the hell does this think lock up to begin with?" Eugene mumbled as he discovered what appeared to be a simple door lock was something entirely different than it seemed. "You better hurry up down there Mr. I-think-I'm-So-Damn-Smart!" shouted Abraham as he embedded his axe in the side of a soiled flannel adorned walker's head. He kicked the slain walker back to remove his axe, knocking over a couple more walkers behind it and swung the axe again to decapitate another walker closing in on his left. Glenn and one of the male Alexandrites were dispatching walkers right and left on the other side of Eugene. "Don't give up now." Glenn encouraged his fighting companion who was beginning to tire. The female Alexandrite covering the approach to the south was overwhelmed by three walkers and as she speared the one ahead of her the one to her right seized upon her and bit down on her neck and shoulder. She collapsed onto her knees from the pain and the rapid loss of blood. The other walker along with one more that just came into the clearing converged on her and started to feast. "Fuck the locks Eugene! We've got to get out of here!" Abraham ordered. He kicked back one walker and started to hack at those that were devouring the woman. Eugene got up and was tackled to the ground by a walker. He kicked and attempted to push the walker off him to no avail as it snapped and chomped in his general direction. Glenn managed to pull the walker off Eugene to allow the terrified self-proclaimed genius to get back up. Glenn knifed the walker in the back of the skull and discarded it while the two male Alexandrites behind him fended off a rising tide of walkers. "Let's go!" Abraham shouted as he cleared a path through the woods to the west. Glenn nodded and followed closely behind Eugene, taking out what walkers they came in contact with while the Alexandrites covered the rear. "So much for getting into the big blue riddle box." grumbled Glenn as they pressed on.

Eventually they returned to Alexandria where Michonne, Tara and Rick helped cut down the walkers that had continued to pursue the team back home. "Did you get it open? What's inside?" asked Rick once they were back behind the safety of Alexandria's walls. "No that door wouldn't budge. We tried busting it down; we tried picking the lock, nothing would work." Glenn answered. "I suppose we could go back with some C4 and try to blow the fucking door off." suggested Abraham. "Nahhh, we might end up destroying the whole thing that way. Looks like if we want to know we might have to resort to asking that doctor to open it for us." Rick told him.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter IV

A little over a week had passed without incident and the Doctor and Rose had begun to become accepted by the residents of Alexandria. They had proven themselves in a domestic capacity though they had not been allowed out the gate. They had shown no sign of ill intention towards the group and had even made a few friends among them; no one in a leadership role yet but new friends nonetheless. This had been a long week for the Doctor, he was used to covering millions of years of time in the span of hours and "going it the long way" was something that seemed so tedious and unnecessary for him. It was at this time that Rick decided to pay the Doctor a visit concerning gaining entry into his TARDIS.

"Are you busy doctor?" asked Rick after he walked into the room where the Doctor was tending to someone's broken leg. They still hadn't learned that he wasn't that kind of doctor but his vast array of knowledge and lifetimes of experience enabled him to do the job as well as anyone. "Not anymore." the Doctor said after he finished with his patient and turned to Rick. "You know this would be much easier if you gave me back my sonic." the Doctor commented. "Oh you mean that pen light? That can be arranged, I'll go grab it after we're done here." Rick responded. Rick took a few more steps inside as the Doctor was putting away the crude implements he had been given to perform his tasks. "What I came here for is that we need your help to get inside that blue box you were hiding in." Rick explained. "Of course you couldn't get in, only I can open it." the Doctor remarked. "Anyways we just wanted to take a look around inside; it would go a long way to helping us figure out just where you stand." Rick explained. The Doctor knew these were hard men and arguing with them would only put himself and Rose in danger, besides they wouldn't understand let alone we able to operate any of the equipment within the TARDIS. He also remembered the conversation he and Rose had about correcting this timeline. If it indeed was the same timeline that Rose had come from it was an erroneous one and it was almost incumbent upon him as a good Time Lord to set it right. "Seeing as I find myself missing that delightful old box I would be willing to take you up on your offer. Bring me my sonic and Rose and I will meet you by the gate." the Doctor accepted. "Well the thing of it is, a lot of folks here might like you but we still can't trust the both of you outside the gate not to turn on us when given the right opportunity. I'll give you your pen light and go with you to your fancy phone booth but the blonde girl is staying here." Rick told the Doctor. "Fair enough, just promise me she will be well taken care of." the Doctor replied. "You have my word, she'll be like family." Rick pledged. "Now I'm gonna go get your toy and you meet me by the gate in half an hour." Rick told the Doctor.

At the appointed time the Doctor met Rick, Daryl, Glenn and Maggie at the gate. Rick handed the Doctor his sonic and offered him a Smith and Wesson .45 pistol. The Doctor took the sonic but refused the weapon. "I don't use weapons, no offense, just not my style." the Doctor said. "Just take it. We can't have you becoming walker feed when you're the only one that can get that thing open." Rick insisted. The Doctor reluctantly took the pistol though he had no intention of using it. Rick's words did have some effect on him after they had left the community however. The thought of a zombified Time Lord was truly terrifying. Would it trigger a regeneration or would he remain a slothful corpse like the humans that were turned? If the latter were true would he then regenerate after his second death? If this blight were indeed a Time Lord killer it would be a truly horrific thing; a thing that most certainly should never reach the mind of a Dalek that was for sure. "So you really believe this box of yours is a time machine huh?" Rick asked the Doctor, thoroughly skeptical of the claim but simply trying to strike up a conversation as they walked through the woods. "A time and space machine, one can't simply travel in one without the other." the Doctor replied. "Still sounds like a bunch of hooey to me." said Daryl. They passed through a large number of slain walkers on the ground. The Doctor nonchalantly scanned them with his sonic screwdriver. "Quiet with that thing, these have been freshly put down which means someone is close by." Daryl whispered. "Word to the wise Dr. whoever you are, most folk out here aren't too friendly." Daryl cynically cautioned the Doctor. The doctor glanced down at his sonic and took in the data it had retrieved. He at first wondered if these things were still human and if by any advanced technology they could be brought back but the results he gathered told him otherwise. The human body was indeed dead to begin with; the only thing alive with these "walkers" as they were called was the organism that was hijacking the motor cortex of the brain. While they activated the brainstem and kept certain vital functions going to slow the decomposition of muscle and nervous tissue the walkers themselves were only temporary hosts for the parasite and in time would fall apart and the symbiotic creature would die if the parasite could not find a new host. The Doctor's preliminary findings fascinated him though he would need a live sample of the organism in order to learn more about the disease itself.

As they drew closer to the TARDIS the group heard the load roar of a large diesel engine. Someone was operating heavy equipment nearby and as expected the noise drew in the nearby walkers. Rick's group slowed down took cover and kept alert as the snarling of approaching walkers was met with a barrage of automatic weapons fire. The group fanned out with weapons drawn and crept towards the TARDIS. When Rick caught the first glimpse of the TARDIS it was wrapped in chains and hooked to the back of a heavy tow truck, one of the big ones that were used to tow semi-trucks and other large vehicles. There were also several men shooting and hacking a horde of walkers that had been drawn in by the noise of the tow truck. Leading these men was a tall well-built man around 40 years old with a slightly receding hairline wielding a baseball bat wrapped it barbed wire. The leader crushed the skull of one of the walkers approaching him with a fierce downward swing and then spit upon the corpse and kicked it back. "Hurry up and clear out these motherfuckers!" the man shouted to his men. "Dammit Negan we're trying!" shouted back a young man as he was chopping at a group of walkers with a machete. Without hesitation Negan drew a pistol and shot that man in the back of the head. "No backtalk boy!" Negan shouted. The Doctor winced when he saw this heartless act of brutality while Rick and the others expected as much from the man-animals that dwelt outside their walls. Negan directed the tow truck to move and the driver mashed down on the gas pedal only to have his tires spin out. The TARDIS refused to budge; it was much heavier than it appeared to be. The TARDIS security system wouldn't allow them to move it unless the door was unlocked or he was inside. However with the TARDIS wrapped in chains there was no way for the Doctor to gain entrance to the TARDIS. The two dozen heavily armed bruisers and nearly one hundred walkers engaged in mortal combat between him and the TARDIS would be no small task to get by either. Rick and the others waited, they couldn't advance nor retreat lest they be noticed. They were outnumbered five to one by the humans alone so their strategy for the moment was to hope the walkers thinned out the ranks of the new group enough so that along with the element of surprise they could come at this group from a position of strength. Daryl had also assumed that if these guys succeeded in dragging away the blue box he could tail them and see where they were taking it, not only for the sake of uncovering the mysteries of the box but to learn where a seemingly large group of potential enemies may be lurking. As the fight played out in front of them the group remained on guard, watching and waiting for an opportunity to act.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter V:

The tow truck's engines roared and started to tilt the TARDIS slightly but couldn't unseat the box from its upright foundation. The Doctor looked over at his new companions hiding in the woods and could tell they were contemplating an attack plan, an attack plan he knew would get them all killed. Being the clever fellow he was he devised a different strategy. Fighting these odds simply would not do, he was the Doctor, not Superman. He could track the TARDIS' location with his sonic if he simply allowed these brutish hooligans to tow it away but that would inevitably end up in a fight as well. It probably would be a worse fight, with greater loss of life than if they fought here for it would be at these brigands' headquarters and would be a two way battle instead of the three way fight that would ensue here. "Best first to confound their plans." the Doctor whispered as he recalibrated his sonic. He pointed his device at the TARDIS as the tow truck made another attempt to pull it. The locks, hocks and chains binding the TARDIS became undone and the tow truck raced forward at full speed mowing down a throng of walkers in its path until it collided head on with an old, broad tree. The tow truck's front grill was severely dented in by the impact and steam rose up from under the hood. Furthermore the massive tree was uprooted by the force of the impact and its ancient branches hooked the truck from underneath. The tow truck started dripping oil and coolant out from below as its weight served as an anchor holding the tree in place, preventing it from total collapse. "What the fuckety fuck!" Negan shouted as the truck tore away from the TARDIS. He clubbed a walker to death and turned and walked towards the driver and passenger of the tow truck as they got out and fled towards him. "You guys fucking suck!" Negan said looking as if he was preparing to club one of his own men running in his direction. Instead he bashed the brains out of a walker that sprung upon said person and had begun to feast. Negan didn't hesitate to put his henchman out of his misery though. "Alright assholes! Looks like we're going to have to come back tomorrow with some C4 and blow the door off of this thing! Some prick doesn't want to share their treasure and you know we don't take kindly to that shit!" Negan announced, ordering his men to withdraw. As they withdrew most of the walkers followed them. The sounds of gunfire, tearing of flesh and the crunching of bones faded into the west.

The remaining walkers soon picked up the scent of fresh meat hiding in the trees. Rick and company were no longer hidden from them. Rick fired the first shot at an elderly female walker and the rest of his group followed suit. "Get to the box Doctor and get it open!" Rick ordered. The Doctor made a run for the TARDIS with Rick coming up alongside him, shooting and pistol whipping any walker that came near him. Maggie and Glenn held the walkers off at the flanks while Daryl hugged close to the tree line and picked off the walkers at the rear. The Doctor opened the TARDIS door making light of the struggles Rick and Negan both had with it. "Really? That's all it took?" Rick asked in amazement. "It's not about the magnitude of power employed but rather the application of said power." the Doctor smugly explained. "Ding!" he cheered holding up the TARDIS key to his face and smiling. "After you my good sir." the Doctor invited Rick in. All the sudden a gunshot rang out and shot dead a walker next to Glenn. "I didn't do that." Maggie called over to Glenn. Before they could react Daryl had a face to face meeting with Lucille, Negan's barbed wire wrapped baseball bat, as the warlord snuck out from behind a tree. The bat caught his chin in an uppercut swing, tearing away a good chunk of flesh and skin with its barbs. Daryl fell backwards from the force of the sucker punch and landed on his rump. "I totally did not see them coming!" exclaimed Glenn as he turned and fired a shot in Negan's direction. Negan hid behind the tree where the bullet struck and Glenn was soon forced to deal with an advancing walker. More of Negan's thugs advanced upon them. They too were too caught up with fighting walkers to truly interfere at this point. With the melee giving him an opening Daryl rolled over and started to get up. "Get the fuck back down!" Negan demanded as he struck Daryl in the back with Lucille. Negan then kicked away his crossbow and planted his boot firmly on top of Daryl's back. "Surprise, surprise, surprise. I didn't think you fucks would be dumb enough to come back here so soon but I guess it's my lucky day." Negan announced. "How about you stand aside and let me take what's mine." Negan demanded. "Rick get inside." the Doctor whispered as he pulled Rick by the collar into the TARDIS. Rick leaned out and shot Negan in the right shoulder, a bullet that had been intended to go through his heart if not for the tugging of the Doctor trying to pull him inside. Glenn! Maggie! Daryl! Run!" Rick screamed out the command. Glenn and Maggie obeyed and fled the area amidst gunshots from Negan's fighters and snarling walkers. The bullet Negan received caused him to stagger back and off of Daryl just enough to allow Daryl a chance to stand up, further hurtling Negan backwards. Daryl then retrieved his crossbow and shot a man who was about to open fire on him with a Winchester rifle. Daryl then turned to flee only to receive a swift, potent blow to the side of the head from Lucille. Negan slammed his head into side of the tree will the full force of both arms even against the throbbing, tearing, eviscerating pain in his shoulder and cracked Daryl's skull open between the makeshift modern day mace and the stiff bark of the oak tree. Glenn looked back but only for a moment as Maggie urged him to go on lest they meet a similar fate. The last thing Rick saw as the TARDIS door shut was Daryl, with his head deformed into the shape of an hourglass sliding down the tree leaving a red painted trail behind it and Negan standing above him with a smug, almost orgasmic look on his face.

 _Author's Note: This chapter was originally intended to go the way of Negan taking the TARDIS back to the Sanctuary and Rick and Company having to go break in to get it but...I wasn't wanting to drag the story out that far (and was ready to get more into the DW part of the story) so I went with this alternative. DISCLAIMER: I am not liable for any potential rioting, real or imagined, that occurs when reading the last couple lines._


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter VI:

"They can't get us in here." the Doctor said as he locked the TARDIS door. Rick and the Doctor turned around to face the interior control room of the TARDIS. "Holy shit! This thing is bigger on the inside, how did you do that?" Rick marveled. "They all say that. This is what the TARDIS really is; the cloaking device simply makes it appear to be a police box on the outside." the Doctor explained. The two of them walked into the control room and the Doctor fiddled around with the controls and pulled down a large lever that initiated a loud whooshing sound. "What is that noise?" asked Rick. "That is us getting away from that maniac outside." the Doctor informed him. Outside, Negan and his henchmen were startled and taken off guard when the TARDIS started to fade in and out of existence. "Dafuq is that shit!" Negan exclaimed as he backed away from the blue box disappearing into the wind.

Within the TARDIS Rick was still awestruck until his thoughts snapped back to the events outside. "As much as I am impressed with this place you really fucked us good Doctor." Rick grumbled. "Daryl's dead, Glenn and Maggie might be too and if they escaped they very well could have led those goons straight back to Alexandria." he bemoaned the cost they had suffered in order to learn the TARDIS's secret. "No need to look so glum all the sudden. We can still save them." said the Doctor. "How?" asked Rick. "I told you this box is a time machine. We go back, change the timeline, and prevent all this zombie business from ever happening. . ." the Doctor explained. "Zombie business?" interrupted Rick. "Oh sorry, excuse me, I meant "walker" business." the doctor quipped. "Anyways we stop the outbreak that changes the timeline, society keeps chugging along as it always has and none of the awful things today would have ever happened." the Doctor explained. "Wait a minute; doesn't that violate some Back to the Future rule or something?" Rick inquired. "What the devil is a back to the future rule?" the Doctor laughed. "You can't change the past, isn't that why time travel supposedly can't work?" Rick elaborated. "Balderdash, as you can see here time travel actually does work. You see, most humans have a misunderstanding of how time really works; they assume that it's something of a straight line proceeding from cause to effect ad infinitem while in reality it is not linear at all. In fact there are as many temporal dimensions as there are spatial dimensions so you can't think only of forwards or backwards but also laterally, vertically and inversely as well. Even within a single space-time ribbon floating within an 11 dimensional hypersphere within the 13 dimensional bulk it branches and merges and loops and falls back onto itself, collapses and expands into quantum bubbles and so on. There are always variables and one of those variables just happens to be me." the Doctor rambled on explaining the physics of space-time in what he thought to be layman's terms. "English please?" Rick asked for clarification. "It's a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, ummm, stuff." the Doctor informed him. "Better." Rick said. "So where exactly did the outbreak begin or should I say when?" Rick asked. "I won't know until I go through the data I gathered from those corpses we saw in the woods. I'm also going to need a blood test." the Doctor replied. "A spaceman asking to do experiments on a human, how cliché." Rick said sarcastically. "You're more clever than I took you for, most fellows assume that I'm completely human at first glance." the Doctor praised Rick. "It's all the. . .weird, that clued me in. With all this wibbly wobbly gobbledeguk and the spaceship in a box you had to be a space alien, or mentally deranged." Rick explained. "I'm glad you chose the former." the Doctor applauded. "Well so the TARDIS computer doesn't have any information on the walker outbreak so we're going to have to work this backwards using good old forensics." the Doctor explained. "Like a crime scene huh? Now you're speaking my language. Let's get this blood test over with Doctor so we can save my friends and you can get back to your lady." Rick said. He had to hope all the fantastic, nonsensical claims the Doctor made concerning time travel were true. He knew the situation outside could only get worse and there was nothing he alone could do to stop it. The Doctor claimed to have a plan, a plan Rick would have to depend on now. It was his only chance to protect his group from imminent destruction.

So the Doctor drew Rick's blood and placed a sample into the TARDIS' analyzer. Meanwhile he flipped up his sonic and began staring at it as it whirred and buzzed as if he could see something infinitesimally small that Rick could not. Within minutes the TARDIS analyzer dinged and displayed the results of its analysis on a laptop sized screen. Rick peered over the Doctor's shoulder to see what he was looking at when he started to peruse through the results but he couldn't make heads or tails of it. Half of it was in symbols or some strange foreign language and there was a flood of numbers racing across the screen along with a few visuals and diagrams that were gone before Rick could blink. The Doctor was like a machine compiling and deciphering all the data that flashed across the screen. Then when the last of the results were displayed the Doctor immediately had a diagnosis to give. "Fascinating, this organism isn't only not from Earth it's not even from the same galaxy." The Doctor commented upon a detailed examination of the infectious agent in Rick's blood. "What makes you say that?" Rick asked. "The organism that is responsible for turning people into walkers. It's not a virus, nor bacteria, nor fungus; it's a single celled eukaryotic organism possibly skin to a protozoan but incredibly more complex than all Earth species. The organism has a two stage life cycle spending most of its time in a chrysalis and only entering into its mature form when it reactivates the host body's motor cortex. While the organism is in the chrysalis it seems to be resistant to most forms of ionizing radiation, heat and chemical agents and can be spread through both the air and water. The mature form of the organism however can only be transmitted by the transfer of bodily fluids, such as sweat, semen, blood and saliva. When outside of a host body for too long the mature form either dies or reverts back to the chrysalis state. It's either the pinnacle of microbiotic evolution or was created using something on the level of Time Lord science which is absolutely preposterous." the Doctor explained. "That's nice but why do you say it's from another planet and how the fuck did it get here?" Rick inquired. "Rotoform double barred triple helix DNA structure with six distinct base pairs that are found nowhere in the Milky Way and surrounding satellite galaxies. The structure itself is a rare occurrence and is almost never found in single celled organisms. As for how it arrived on Earth there are many means by which microbes can make the leap from one planet to another, they could be free floating spaceborne creatures, or carried by meteors, comets, interstellar dust or an infected member of a spacefaring civilization might have accidentally or intentionally brought it with them on a visit to Earth." the Doctor explained. "Alright that makes sense, I suppose. So where did it start and how do we stop it?" asked Rick cutting to the important question. "I have never seen anything like it and have no means of tracking down exactly where in the cosmos it came from." replied the Doctor. "So when did it begin on Earth? Can you tell me that much?" asked Rick. The Doctor typed in a few more variables into the TARDIS computer and extrapolated the mutations and concentrations of the infectious agent throughout the Earth at various points along the new timeline which the TARDIS was constructing as it moved through the time vortex and scanned various zones throughout. "Oh, oh Brilliant! I've got it!" the Doctor exclaimed. "1113 AM and 53.522201 seconds local time, March 4th 2008, San Diego International Airport, Terminal 2 East, Gate 20. That is where we will find our walker zero!" the Doctor enthusiastically informed Rick. "From there we can stop this person from infecting any others, backtrack the source of the infection, remove it and bammo!" the Doctor said, clapping his hands with glee at the end of the sentence. "We fix the timeline and you and your buddies go on with your happy lives and the word "walker" goes back to being something old people use to get around." the Doctor merrily informed Rick of their plan. The Doctor then gripped the actuator levers on the TARDIS' main control panel. "Alons-Y!" he exclaimed as he yanked them downwards. The familiar whooshing of the TARDIS engines followed; Rick and the Doctor were on their way back to where it all began.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter VII

As the TARDIS shifted back through time Rick began to think about exactly what it meant if they truly were going back to the past. When he drew some of the possibilities out to their logical conclusions the results frightened him. Just before he spoke up to second guess the Doctor's motives he came up with an idea that would eliminate the need to even make the trip back in the first place. "So I've been thinking all this crisscrossing timelines you're talking about may not be necessary. What if I run into myself in the past? That has to be a major no-no in time travel. Couldn't we just use all this fancy equipment in here to make a vaccine using the blood you took from me?" Rick proposed. The Doctor spun around from the controls, rubbed his chin and leaned back thinking on it for a moment, just a moment. "No, that wouldn't work. You have an immunity that keeps the passive form of the disease from metastasizing and converting you while you're still alive. Everyone that's still alive in your world has it. However it's not a total immune response, it prevents the infection from causing death but does not prevent the infection. Ergo the infection in your blood is permanently in the passive state and aside from exposing it to the active organism it will remain that way. A vaccine made from your blood would be ineffective in stopping the spread of the disease." the Doctor explained. "Although you raise a good point, vaccination would be preferable to quarantine. Perhaps if I got a sample from the original patient, prior to the disease undergoing further mutation and variation I could use the TARDIS onboard laboratory facilities and synthesize a vaccine from the infection's original form on this planet. Since all future mutations are based upon the original virus the vaccine should be effective against all derivations thereof." the Doctor stated. The TARDIS started whooshing again as they landed in San Diego prior to the start of the outbreak. The final whoosh passed and then a still silence. It was time to put the plan into action.

"Before we do this I need to know something." Rick spoke up as the two of them stood up from their seats. "If you are successful in cleaning up this mess and preventing the first walker from turning what will happen to the people I know, to me?" Rick asked. "The time stream will be re-written and all the damage done by the outbreak of the zombification disease will be reversed. The people who have died as a result will be alive again, as humans not zombies, err walkers. Everyone would have gone on with their lives in the way they would have if the outbreak hadn't occurred; all of the troubles they had suffered will be forgotten." the Doctor explained. "Since you are in the TARDIS you will be protected from the changes in the time stream. That means that you will need to be inoculated with whatever cure to the disease that we are able to synthesize from the original infectious agent. That also means that when you return you will be the only one who remembers any of this. The walkers, the fallen Earth, the memories of people you would have never met otherwise, all of that will exist only in your mind." the Doctor further elucidated. "You mean that when I go back the people I know wouldn't remember me but I will remember them?" Rick asked. "Precisely." the Doctor replied. It was a bittersweet victory but a victory nonetheless, and more so a victory that would have never been possible without the Doctor's intervention. Daryl, Andrea, Dale, Herschel, Beth, Tyrese, Bob and everyone else they lost would be alive but they wouldn't remember him. Shane and Lori would be alive and back into his life the way they were before, all the while Rick would remember what Shane did and live with the knowledge of an affair that never happened, always suspect that it would occur given the right circumstances. The bonds of trust between Rick and his partner would never exist the way they did before as a result, the same could even be said of Lori as well. Carl would still be an innocent growing boy passing through puberty as boys do, there would be the usual set of challenges but thankfully they wouldn't be existential ones. Glenn and Maggie would have never met each other, nor Rick for that matter and only he would know what they could have been together. Such was the price for a better world, and while a seemingly steep price one that was well beyond worth it for what they would gain.

"I'm down, so are we going to go or what?" Rick asked with renewed resolution. "To be accurate I'm going to go." The Doctor told Rick as he walked to the TARDIS door with Rick following behind him. The Doctor stopped, standing in front of the door and turned to face Rick. "You're infected, you need to stay here." the Doctor stated. "What we're going to be dealing with out there is a highly concentrated form of the active pathogen. You've seen what being introduced to the active form of the disease does to people in your time." the Doctor explained. "Yeah, they turn." Rick replied. "Precisely." the Doctor confirmed. "What about you? Are you worried you might get infected?" Rick inquired. "My immune system can repel a Dalek nanophage so a little bit of the corpus reanimatus would pose no more concern to me than a case of the sniffles would to the everyday human." the Doctor explained. Reluctantly Rick backed away and consented to the Doctor going along solo. He didn't want to make things worse by introducing a future stage of the disease in tandem with the concentrated original form. "If you need to stretch out your legs you can go through that door and down two levels there's a track that goes all the way around the perimeter. Also you can access television and video games from any point in the time-space continuum from that monitor up there. The lower monitor has access to the combined archive of human literary works, both in print and digital form. There's a jack for direct mind to mind transfer as well but let's stick to the basics shall we?" The Doctor informed Rick pointing out a few things he can do to pass the time. "Oh and do me a favor and don't touch any of the controls over there, there and there. Oh and especially not that one over there" the Doctor warned him. "I'll be fine here; you go on ahead and fix this mess." Rick told the Doctor. "Alright then, I'll be back in a few." the Doctor replied then walked up to the door, placed his hand on the knob and started to turn it. "Allons-y!" he exclaimed as he opened the door and walked out of the TARDIS into the world back when it was walker free. Meanwhile Rick sat down and activated the upper monitor, he sifted through the TARDIS's databanks and put a random episode of Rick and Morty on while he waited for the Doctor to diagnose, treat and cure the past of its terminal walker infection.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter VIII:

A family of tourists was taking photos in front of the TARDIS when the Doctor emerged. "Oh, don't mind me, carry on." the Doctor said upon startling them. Several others also seemed fascinated with the TARDIS presuming it to be some kind of novelty decoration the airport had put up. None of the people going about their business in the terminal seemed surprised when the TARDIS had first materialized however. Those who had noticed it afterwards had assumed it had been there for some time. A teenage girl and her boyfriend stopped the Doctor and asked him if he would we willing to take a picture of them standing in front of the TARDIS door, a request that he was happy to oblige.

After handing the girl's phone back to her the Doctor then went to work. He flipped out his sonic screwdriver and first did a cursory scan of the surrounding area. It was clean so he then, after waiting the requisite number of minutes watching the tourists and passersby, he proceeded up and down the terminal, checking each of the waiting areas up to the boarding gates. He scanned everyone passing by as well as the surrounding environment with his sonic as he made his wade through an ever widening search area. "Nothing, nothing at all." he whispered to himself. Everything was coming up negative, that first infection was a wily one indeed. Nonetheless the Doctor was certain of the location and the approximate time so all he had to do was wait. According to the TARDIS database he had parked the TARDIS within five meters of where the first known victim of the walker plague would be made manifest. He could have been off on the time frame he supposed so he went back towards the TARDIS and decided to wait for Mr. or Mrs. Walker Zero to show his or herself.

His peculiar behavior had attracted more than just the attention of busy airline passengers however. One security guard, a hefty African American woman in her late 20s or early 30s with short hair kept in a small bun and gaudy faux gold hoop earrings saw him scanning people with his sonic screwdriver and took notice. She approached the Doctor slowly at a waddle because she was indeed quite portly to the point it impeded with locomotion and caught up with him when he stopped beside a bench and a potted plant near the TARDIS. "Excuse me sir, might I have a word with you?" she asked. "Certainly ma'am." the Doctor pleasantly replied. "Let me see your boarding pass." the woman demanded. The Doctor flipped out his psychic paper and handed it to the security officer. "Alright, there you are ma'am." he cordially replied. "It's blank." remarked the officer upon seeing nothing on the paper. That usually didn't happen, the Doctor thought, was she this dull and uncreative that nothing came to mind when she looked at the paper? That kind of stuff happens sometimes with people in overly bureaucratic organizations, everything by the book, often monotonous in thought, word and deed, makes for a dull mind and immunity to psychic paper. This however put the Doctor in a precarious situation. "I need you to wait right here. Don't try to leave now sir." the woman instructed him. The Doctor did as he was told; he had nothing to hide, nothing that the average human could discern apart from rubbish that is.

"Henry, yeah Henry, come over here." the security officer called out and waved to one of her fellow airport security personnel. The man she called left his partner alone at the screening booth he was working at and went over to see what the officer wanted him for. The screener was a tall gangly man, pale skinned with wiry balding light brown hair and probably in his late forties. He wore round glasses and overall gave off the appearance of a turtle dislodged from its shell. He was one of the specialized inspectors that did male cavity searches upon request and was being summoned apparently for that purpose. "What is it Gretchen?" asked the man. "Caught this joker wandering around acting all funny with this magic wand thingy." she replied as she snatched the Doctor's sonic screwdriver out of his hands and flashed it before the male screener that had arrived. "Thought we might want to take him in for a closer look." she suggested. "Sir, if you could come with me." the man instructed the Doctor. "Don't you try anything funny. It is pointless to resist." the woman told him as she took him by the right arm and led him along behind the man.

They took the Doctor to a small empty room and left him there, locking the door behind him on their way out. In the corner of the plain room was a camera with a microphone and in the opposite corner a bench was built into the floor. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the bench looking up into the camera. Hopefully this business wouldn't take long and he could get back to tracking the source of the walker epidemic.

Meanwhile in a remote viewing office the two security officers met with their immediate supervisor while the Doctor was on screen in front of them. "We picked up a suspicious fellow with a funny accent poking around gate 20 so we pulled him in for questioning." the female officer informed her supervisor. The supervisor was a stern looking woman tall and thick, like an amazon of lore. She was a good two shades darker than the female officer and had well pampered voluminous hair. Out of the three of them she was the most professional looking one in the room, with a sharp uniform and carrying herself like a person of authority, making the other two look like cheap rent-a-cops by comparison. "It's an international airport so a lot of people are going to have funny accents Gretchen." the supervisor replied. The supervisor turned to the monitor and rubbed her chin while observing the Doctor looking back at her through the camera. "Hello." the Doctor said in an uncanny coincidence just as she looked through the monitor at him. "No need to be alarmed, just saying hello." the Doctor said as the supervisor recoiled a little. "Cut the speaker." the supervisor told the screener. He flipped a switch which shut off the speakers from the doctor's cell. It made the supervisor feel less unnerved if she couldn't hear him, even though whatever weird coincidences were going on wouldn't be stopped by the act. In actuality the Doctor had managed to convert the camera into a two way communications device using a sonic button in his left breast pocket. While not as complex of a device as a sonic screwdriver it could be used to remotely actuate his sonic screwdriver to make the necessary adjustments to the camera and speakers, thus allowing him to listen in and observe what was happening behind closed doors in the airport security office.

"Ok, so we got this peculiar fellow here. What can you tell me about him?" the supervisor asked the pair of screeners. "When I checked him he got no boarding pass and I for one don't recall seeing him go through security in the first place." Gretchen told her supervisor. "See if you can pull something up on the video about him. Find out when and where he first arrived." the supervisor instructed Henry. After what seemed like hours of sifting through video footage and watching the Doctor sit there smugly in his cell the security guards were ready to give up. "Anything?" asked the supervisor. "Nothing. I don't see him at any of the entrances or exits. First time he appears is here when he's taking a photo with these kids by that goofy box in the corridor." Henry reported. The TARDIS' chameleon circuit did its job and none of the security officers seemed to think it's presence was out of place, despite it being a big blue box displaced in time and space in the middle of a modern airport. He doesn't seem to act like a man hiding something, doesn't look worried in the least." the supervisor commented after observing the Doctor all the while. "Patient fella that's for sure. Either he's just that good, or we've been wasting our time." remarked Gretchen. "Well, might as well give him the cavity search and if he's clean send him on his way." the supervisor got up and said. "You keep digging through that video footage and see if you can pinpoint anything unusual." she instructed Henry who remained behind while she and Gretchen went to go pay a visit to the Doctor.

The Doctor got up as soon as the two of them entered into the room. "You can remain seated sir." the supervisor told him. "Now we've been looking over your activities here today and they seem a little suspicious. If you wouldn't mind telling us what you are doing here today sir?" the supervisor asked. "You see I'm looking to catch a flight to London and I seem to have misplaced my boarding pass so I was searching for it when your associate here stopped me." the Doctor told them in such a way that they had to believe his every word was truthful. "Mmmmhmmm, you don't mind if she does a little cavity search on you?" the supervisor asked. "Search away. Though you might want to watch out, I did have cheese curds and jammie dodgers earlier today and the combination can be quite nasty coming out the other end." the Doctor consented. Gretchen put on her gloves and started to pat the doctor down. Having already removed the Doctor's sonic from his person earlier they found nothing of interest, a crumpled up tissue, a photo of the loch ness monster, the real one before it went extinct, not the cloned version placed back into the loch in AD 5412, some string, an eraser and a couple of ornamental handcrafted chess pieces, a white pawn and black queen to be exact that had somehow gotten into his pocket from a game of chess he had with Napoleon a few months back. As Gretchen instructed the Doctor to lower his trousers a foul smell like that of pure sulfur that could burn the nose hairs off any mere mortal squeaked out. "Daaaaaamn that's rancid!" complained the screener as she got up and backed away. "I warned you. I really should stop mixing things with Jammie Dodgers, really." the Doctor lightheartedly remarked. "Now if you'd rather make a go at the easy way around this I believe you will find my credentials in by left coat pocket." the Doctor told the airport screener. The supervisor looked at Gretchen, reeling in disgust and then took the psychic paper out of the Doctor's pocket as he had suggested and looked at it. "DHS, Office of the Inspector General. This is a test?" she asked. Gretchen took the psychic paper in its familiar binding and looked at it. What kind of trick was he trying to play? This time what had been blank before were now legit credentials from high up in the DHS. Dumbfounded, she handed the paper back to the Doctor. Must've been some fancy spy gadget there, disappearing ink, those national security types always thinking up new and clever ways to test them she assumed. "Bingo, and you passed with flying colors. Fine detective work there, right right." the Doctor applauded them both. "What was with this then?" the supervisor asked him while taking out the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and brandishing it in front of his face. "A harmless toy, it just lights up and makes noise that's all." The Doctor told them. "Hmmm, looks like we were a little too jumpy today." the supervisor commented. The Doctor tightened his trousers and patted the supervisor on the back. "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. Good work." he applauded her. She handed the Doctor back his sonic screwdriver and let him go before heading back to the office to tell Henry, who still had no new news to report, to abandon the search and return to his duty station.

After being released from his duty station the Doctor returned to the area around the TARDIS. This time his scans frightened him, at first they all came back negative but then there was a positive reading for the zombification disease. It was not just one positive, but several, all in the vicinity of the TARDIS. He scanned out over longer distances in the airport and quickly moved up and down the terminal to each of the gates. There he found several people infected with the disease. More chilling was the fact that each of these people were those he had seen earlier during his scans. The young couple, the family posing by the TARDIS, and several others, now all registered as carrying the deadly organism. He briskly walked past the TARDIS towards the airport security checkpoint. He was in no particularly hurry except to confirm his own nagging curiosity; the epidemic that had begun was a silent one, the walkers themselves would not be made manifest to the world for nearly another year, by that time nearly all corners of the globe would have been exposed to the pathogen. He stopped at a distance in front of Gretchen and Henry while they checked in other passengers and scanned them. The results confirmed his fears, they were both infected. He walked intently back to the TARDIS cursing himself for being so foolish. How in his arrogance had he been so blind, so reckless, how could he have let something so obvious pass over him without as much as a thought? It was the end of the Time War all over again; he had single-handedly brought about the end of the species he had come to love and protect. For all the evidence seemed to point to the fact that the passive form of the infectious agent must have mutated during his stint in Rick's time and found a way to cheat both the TARDIS scanners and decontamination screens. This single celled nemesis had proven itself to be quite intelligent in its own right, clever enough to fool the Doctor, who was very, very clever to begin with. As he approached the Tardis door and turned the handle to open it he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had located Walker Zero. He was Walker Zero.

 _Author's Note: This is the conclusion of "Walker Zero" but it is not the end of the story so to speak. There are two planned sequels "Flesh and Steel" from Rose's perspective, and the direct sequel tentatively titled "Walker Zero - Part II" which will pick up with the Doctor and Rick right where this one leaves off and will explore more of the Doctor Who side of things leading up to the true origin of the outbreak now encapsulated in a time loop. I'm doing it this way because I like this chapter as an ending (particularly the last paragraph) and didn't want it to get lost in the middle of the tale. To all of my readers thank you for your continued interest and support. Cheers._


End file.
